The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2

by Daniel A. Rabuzzi

  (The Cook and her niece were not invited—primarily to spare them a burden of knowledge—but Barnabas half-acknowledged that they would be eavesdropping.)

  Even Yikes sensed the importance of the meeting. He actually sat up for a few minutes at its start, before (presumably having reassured himself that destruction and death were not imminent, at least not before dinner time) resuming his usual posture by the fire-fender. He could be seen to open one eye from time to time, whenever the discussion rose to periodic heights, or perhaps just when a particularly large and agile spark landed on his back.

  “Most of you know what I will be talking about,” continued Barnabas. “As for those of you who are not yet fully aware: Sanford and I invited you here because you are already in danger without knowing it. You have a right to know what this danger is and then decide for yourselves whether or not to persist with us in our efforts.”

  Sanford added, “Much of what we tell you will be hard to credit, as flying in the face of reason and sobriety, yet we speculate—on pretty firm grounds—that you already know much of this story, even if it has not been fully detailed for you before.”

  Barnabas stood very straight, stroked his vest (a deep-blue picotte design with checks of vermilion), put his hand up in his “clarifying” stance, and said, “To start at a beginning: there is a place called Yount, and there is a being called Strix . . .”

  Before he could finish, Sedgewick, Maggie and James began talking at once, and Matchett & Frew broke out laughing (“we knew it, we knew it,” the latter exclaimed).

  Maggie’s voice cut across the rest until she was the only one speaking.

  “I know this,” she said. “I know the Owl, I have sung a wall against him, and aim to sing the fight to him, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” said Barnabas, “Beans and bacon, I do.”

  “I have a plan for us,” said Maggie, who then outlined her work and calculations to date.

  Sally gasped, “Why, that is my concept! That’s the Project we are already engaged in!”

  Maggie said, “Mine has been long in the devising. I lack only the resources to perfect it.”

  To his own surprise, as much as Maggie’s, Sedgewick said, “I can vouchsafe this. I have seen this girl’s work myself—it is a potent thing, a metaphysical engine, buttressed by mathematics.”

  “So is mine, so is mine,” cried Sally. Sally described her design for the Great Fulginator.

  “Your schema lacks the coordinates to entrain the rhythm, and specifically you miss Euler’s “i” in your extraction of roots,” said Maggie.

  “Not so, not so,” countered Sally. Isaak darted under the table.

  Discussion became debate, lasting some time. Dorentius and Reglum contributed many comments, now siding with Sally, now with Maggie.

  “The steam-driven engine will be the determinant of success,” declared Dorentius. “Without it, we cannot amplify the effects of the Fulginator to a volume necessary to accomplish the task . . . of moving an entire world.”

  “True enough,” said Sally. “Which is why my plan includes a juncture for the steam to impress upon the lusitropic substrates . . .”

  “Yes, but, in my treatment you can clearly see how the virgulic escapements will channel the steam’s force most effectively . . .” said Maggie.

  In the end, all the men agreed that Sally and Maggie needed to pool their ideas. Maggie and Sally looked less certain, but—eying each other warily—consented to their newfound partnership.

  “Well, figs and footrails, I am glad we have that settled now,” said Barnabas, shaking his head. “And all that commotion just describes the work on the Fulginator alone, mind you. More slowly still proceeds the work on the design for the ship itself, The Indigo Pheasant.”

  “Sally, Maggie, we need you not only to combine your drafts for the Fulginator,” intoned Sanford. “But we need you to collaborate with Mr. Gandy, the master-designer and architect for the vessel.”

  “A very rum sort, that Mr. Gandy,” said Barnabas.

  “The hoop calls the ball round,” stage-whispered Matchett to Frew.

  “. . . and with the craftsmen at Blackwall’s yard; time is—as Sedgewick will tell us in his lawyer’s way—of the essence,” said Sanford.

  “My vision requires resources,” said Maggie.

  “Our vision,” murmured Sally.

  “Ah, beyond doubt,” said Barnabas. “There’s challenges to be surmounted there.”

  Barnabas and Sanford explained the poor state of the fundraising. Many financial schemes, suggestions, stratagems and ploys were debated, as Cook brought in tea for all.

  “The firm of Coppelius, Prinn & Goethals (Widow) looks ever more the saviour, given their strong interest and the correspondingly weak responses from just about every other quarter . . . present company excluded, of course, dear Matchett & Frew,” said Barnabas.

  “Thank you, Barnabas, we are ever friends of your house, you know that,” said Matchett. “And it may astonish you to discover that we have long half-known of Yount and the Owl Strix and surmised that your recent escapades had something to do with that land of fable and its fearsome warden.”

  “Always knew you two kept strange company,” said Sanford. “Now we do too.”

  “Which brings us back to Coppelius and company,” said Frew. “If there is no other way, then we must take them on as partners in the Indigo Pheasant, but we hear odd noises—under the cover of night, as it were—about this firm.”

  “As do I,” said Sedgewick.

  More discussion ensued, over rounds of tea and scones.

  “Like it or not then,” concluded Barnabas. “We have no other way if we are to fund the Pheasant; we must invite the firm Coppelius to participate. Agreed?”

  Without enthusiasm, all relevant heads nodded “yes.”

  “We might also pursue more and further assistance from His Majesty’s Government,” said Sedgewick. “The investment by the East India Company surely indicates an interest in the Project beyond simply that of a commercial nature.”

  Cook brought in meat-pies, a compote of harvest fruits, a bowl of boiled potatoes in cream sauce, and a cold joint of ham, plus bottles of claret and sherry.

  “Reglum, Dorentius . . . any reason why we should not move forward on the Queen’s desire to announce Farther Yount to the British government?” asked Barnabas.

  “Our Queen expressly authorized us—and you—to do just that, even if it means the end of the Hullitate dynasty,” said Reglum. “The Arch-Bishop and his faction can be no more an enemy than they already are.”

  “Forge ahead, with all energy,” nodded Dorentius, who added, “When Oxonians and Cantabrigians agree on something this swiftly and thoroughly, then the proposed course of action must be resoundingly the right one!”

  Sally laughed, followed by everyone in the entire room.

  “Thank you Dorentius,” said Barnabas. “Between your remark and the effect of this most satisfactory claret, I am beginning to feel a little bit more at ease about the likelihood of our success!”

  Sedgewick said, “I can be of particular assistance here, knowing the Admiralty as well as I do.”

  “Can you get us an audience with Sir John Barrow?” said Barnabas.

  “I believe I can,” said Sedgewick. At this, Kidlington stirred but said nothing.

  “The King’s ministers may be particularly attentive to our approach when we tell them that a special envoy from the Chinese Emperor is somehow mixed up in the matter,” said Barnabas. He told—to the amazement of the audience—of the letters from the Termuydens, indicating that the Chinese delegation was due to arrive on an East Indiaman in the spring and that the Termuydens believed the young woman in the delegation might be a Singer.

  Cook brought out a blond pudding, dense with suet, full of apricots and apples. Flourishing the bottle, she doused the pudding with brandy and set the confection alight, to general approbation.

  “One of Tom’s favourites,�
�� said Sally, between bites.

  Barnabas said, “He would have liked the ham this evening too.”

  “Any sense of Tom’s well-being?” said Sanford. “Afsana’s? Any news from Yount whatsoever by whatever means?”

  Sally shook her head.

  “They might all be dead, for aught we know,” said Dorentius, rubbing his knee.

  “But we mustn’t think that way,” said Reglum, gently.

  “Indeed not,” said Barnabas, rising from his chair. “Keep our faith! More than that, ’tis time to counter-attack, run right at ‘em, like Rodney against the French once more!”

  “Hear, hear, our governor!” said Billy Sea-Hen, standing up as well. Neither he nor any of the other Minders had spoken yet. “We are with you, Mr. McDoon, blood and bone. And with your good nephew, sir, Tommy Two-Fingers, right lads? ‘Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.’ No hosannas lie dawd-idlin’ on our tongues. We have roused the multitudes, who will stand guard over this house and will be sanctified pickets ’round the shipyard. Let the Owl beware how he flies now!”

  The others broke into applause.

  “Oh, one more thing,” said Billy. “Thank you to you and to your Cook for this most fine meal. Me and the boys here ain’t et so well in a long time. This be four stout chapters on lean times, as it were.”

  Everyone raised a glass to Cook, who was loitering in the doorway. She flushed, curtsied and returned to the kitchen.

  “To the Indigo Pheasant, to Yount,” said Barnabas. Everyone toasted again, and then the gathering began to disperse.

  James Kidlington and Sedgewick were the last to leave. Sanford and Barnabas spoke with them in the hallway.

  “Mr. Kidlington, we weighed long whether or not to invite you to this parley,” said Sanford. “Mr. Sedgewick’s vote in your favour was the decisive one. You owe him your gratitude.”

  “Thank you, sirs,” said Kidlington, his face yielding no purchase for interpretation.

  “Yet you said nothing here today,” said Sanford. “Tell us your thoughts in private, please.”

  “I have little enough to add to what has already been said,” replied Kidlington. “I appreciate learning the whole story, having had . . . ample time to mull and marinate the snippets and snappets of information I previously possessed.”

  “You agree with our plans?” said Barnabas.

  Kidlington played with his gloves before replying.

  “More than you could know, sir,” he said. “I know the enemies haunting us, I know them much too well. As for Yount . . . it could hardly be stranger than some of the places on this Earth that I have visited.”

  Sanford opened the door. Just before Kidlington passed through, Barnabas said, “Sally, what are your inclinations towards Sally?”

  Kidlington halted, turned to face his questioner.

  “I will not disturb Sally, nor will I ever allow any harm come to her, if that is what you mean, sir,” he replied. “More than that does not bear discussing.”

  “Another has a strong claim on her affections,” said Barnabas.

  Kidlington strode down the steps of the house on Mincing Lane. He turned at the bottom of the stairs and said, “Yet she has a will of her own.”

  Before either Barnabas or Sanford could respond, Kidlington was gone.

  Sedgewick was the very last to depart.

  “Is he to be trusted?” asked Sanford of the lawyer.

  “So far and so long as it coincides with his own plans,” said Sedgewick. “But, then again, is that not the best any of us can say, or expect of any other?”

  Sanford put his hand on Sedgewick’s shoulder, and said, “How is your wife?”

  “Poorly,” said Sedgewick. “But thank you for asking.”

  Sedgewick walked into the darkness beyond the lamp by the blue door of the house on Mincing Lane.

  “Not a single Latin word from him all evening,” said Barnabas. “Old Sedgewick is in a bad way.”

  “The Owl has much to answer for,” said Sanford, shutting the door.

  The Cook was meaning the very same thing, down in the kitchen.

  “Not just a brewery of eggshells this time, or a hanging up of witch-bottles,” she said. “Just as I said, everything is all a-swickle. Well, if the Devil wants a fight, he will get one from me! I will make him swallow a fork, I will. Gather your feet now, niece, and get ready. Where’s my knife for heweling, the really big one?”

  A week later, at supper time, Sally called on the Gardiners in Gracechurch Street. She excused her escort, Mr. Fletcher, saying she would come straight back on her own by hackney.

  But she did not come straight back, instructing the hackney instead to deliver her to an address just off Fenchurch Street.

  As the coach clattered through the lane-fractured City, Sally argued with herself.

  “One foot over the stile now, must go either forward or back.”

  She reached up to rap on the ceiling, instructed the driver to turn around and head to Mincing Lane . . .

  She felt the trickle—turning into a rushet—of the blood, flowing from the contusions on her heart: the imperious pressure of a thwarted humour in its most jussive mood, insistent, undeniable, scoring the pericardium of her emotions, gouging still deeper the endless channel into which desire flows without regard for equity or equipoise, indifferent to rectitude or retribution.

  . . . She lowered her hand before she knocked on the ceiling. The coach rolled on towards the address off Fenchurch Street.

  She glimpsed in her mind the Berosiana, the Book of Rue and Repentance, saw inscribed there many words in a fiery script on pages patined in gold. She reached her hand up again . . .

  She felt the siking of desire, widening into an ocean that grew but had no shore, a tempest-straked, illimitable ocean, its surface japanned with seducements and spooning eddies, a heaving, froth-scurled surface over plumbless depths.

  . . . Again she retracted her arm.

  The carriage stopped and Sally got out.

  A door opened. James stood in the lamplight, extending his hand.

  Sally took his hand. The door closed behind the two of them.

  On the morning two days after Sally’s tryst with James at his lodgings near Fenchurch Street, Maggie accompanied the Cook to Sally’s room in the attic. Sally had not been out of her room since returning late the evening before last. Cook had on a tray for Sally warm milk with honey, a fat jenneting cut into quarters, a sliver of slipcote cheese from Sussex, and two fine wheat buns still warm from the bakery just off Dunster Court.

  “Come along, my love,” said Cook. “Whatever the matter is, it won’t get any better if you don’t eat. Ewe’s-milk cheese, Sally, with a rosey-greeney pear, just the thing to help you cast off your blue spectacles.”

  Sally opened the door a few moments later. She took the tray from Cook. Seeing Maggie behind Cook, Sally said, “Oh, it’s you.”

  Cook stepped back, thinking, “Two queen bees in one hive will never do. So alike, yet so different. A black Sally and a white Maggie. But that Maggie is no little smee ducking around in the bulrushes. She’s a game cock, got ‘er gaffles on for fightin’. Or a shrike, with a bill for tearing. They might ought to name that ship of theirs the Shrike-Pheasant, though no one’s asking me.”

  Cook left the two young women facing each other at Sally’s door.

  “May I come in?” said Maggie.

  “If you must,” said Sally, shrugging and turning away.

  “A galled back it is that breaks easily,” said Maggie.

  “A hog oversat is cause of its own bane,” said Sally.

  Maggie shook her head and entered Sally’s room.

  “Chi di,” said Maggie. “How do you live like this? How do you find anything when you need it?”

  Sally put the tray down so hard the milk slopped over the glass and one of the buns rolled onto the floor (which Isaak then chased and batted into a paper-choked corner).r />
  “You, how dare you?” said Sally, her hair uncombed, her feet bare.

  “Cousin, cousin, please, I meant no harm. . . .”

  “Don’t ‘cousin’ me . . . You’re the interloper, Maggie Collins, not me, make no mistake.”

  “Oh, ma chi kwe, will you calm yourself . . . please? We’ve work to do, you and I; whether we hold hands doing so is beside the point, don’t you think?”

  Sally turned her back, sat down, ate and drank a bit before replying.

  “Maggie, . . . I am sorry. It’s just that . . . you are so new here, and we McDoons have already carried ourselves through so much, our plans are so advanced, I would hardly know where to start in developing your state of knowledge.”

  Maggie looked around the room, contained her anger (barely). She acknowledged the many intriguing calculations and drawings pinned on the walls and she was eager to delve into many of the books she saw piled on the floor and leaning one on the other in the bookcases.

  “But there is no cohesion, no system,” Maggie thought. “As Cook would say, this is a regular scrimble-scramble, higgles and piggles. Over there I spy a fragment of a fugue, and there the origins of a cantata, but the instrumentation is incomplete and there is no overall composition. Sally, you think too small: we are in search of an oratorio, a Singing on a very grand scale.”

  All she said aloud was, “I have been through trials of my own, Sally, and would be in my turn uncertain to know how to convey their effect to you. Let us postpone such discourses. Instead we must prepare for our visitor, or have you forgotten? Mr. Gandy arrives in an hour, and we need to show him our designs, together downstairs in the partners’ office.”

  Mr. Gandy arrived right on time. The first Sally and Maggie saw of him was a pair of energetic, well-trousered legs and worn but nicely brushed shoes below an enormous birdcage carried by two ink-stained hands. In the cage was a thrush-sized bird, glossy black with a single sharply tranched white bar on each wing and an equally well-demarcated white belly. Its tail was long and black with white edges. It sang prodigiously, filling the house with tumbling, soaring, darting notes, small eruptions, a rill of effervescence.